Harlow-Ao1 Flashcards
Aim
Investigate weather food or comfort is more important in formation of attatchments
Method
Lab experiment
How many baby’s monkey were speperated from mothers at birth and brought up in cages ?
16
What did the cage contain ?
Surrogate mother
And cloth mother without milk ( provided comfort )
What was recoded ?
Amount of time spent with each mother
What happened during the experiment
Monkeys were frightened by loud noise to see which mother they prefer
Long term effect were recorded
What was found about them?
Monkey spent more time with cloth mother
And when frightened they went to cloth mother
What happens to the monkey later in life?
Emotional damage and easily bullied
What happened to the female monkeys?
Females being inadequate mothers when older
Conclusion
Contact comfort is most important fact forming an attatchment
Ao3 weakenss animal bias
Crisizied for animal bias rhesus moneys used
Problem human attatchment behaviour may be more complex than animal attachment
As human emotions are more sophisticated
Therefore there are issues with extrapolating findings of Harlows research with humans
Ao3 Harlow strength practical application
Principles of the research findings that contact comfort is most important in formation of attatchments
And used in real world to emphasise child rearing needs
To go beyond caring for a child’s physical needs
Used by professionals (social workers ) to prevent long term damage
Harlows research is an important part of applied psychology when explaining the formations of attachments
